


tender-headed

by Servetolive



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: ASMR-tingles, Banter, Cloud's Childhood, Ethnic Hair Care, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Male Bonding, POC/urban gaze, Swearing, Sweet, Talking, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, cloud strife x happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23681080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servetolive/pseuds/Servetolive
Summary: “What are these called again?” Cloud asked, leaning over the bathroom sink to examine the perfectly straight lines that Reno had braided into his scalp. “Hedgerows?”“Cornrows,Cloud, jeez. Not everything is a damn military operation."Reno braids Cloud's hair, and they bond through conversation. A tribute to under-represented minorities in fandom.
Relationships: Reno/Cloud Strife
Comments: 15
Kudos: 81
Collections: Catching Feelings





	tender-headed

**Author's Note:**

> First off: I never, ever do fluff. 
> 
> But my cousin and I were discussing about how good it felt when our moms did our hair, and when we realized that this is a shared experience for many people of color, it became a whole head canon. It's a bonding experience that is pretty unique and intimate. I wanted to explore that through my faves.
> 
> This fic is a gift for other POC in this fandom, because it gets lonely out there for us. <3
> 
> Edited: Fixed formatting fail, and added a couple of lines about Cloud's funny little story.

“What are these called again?” Cloud asked, leaning over the bathroom sink to examine the perfectly straight lines that Reno had braided into his scalp. “Hedgerows?”

“ _Cornrows,_ Cloud, jeez.” Reno leaned his head to the side and finished the end of his very last braid, pulling the long strand of hair taut. Cloud had trouble keeping up with how quick and skillful his fingers worked on such a thin part of the hair, and wondered how it was possible to be so precise. Reno grabbed a tiny black elastic band and tied it off. “Not everything is a damn military operation.”

He took one of the larger bands he usually used to tie his hair back, pulled the collection of braids through them twice, and then tossed his new ponytail back over his other shoulder. He opened a jar, dabbed his fingers into it, and leaned close to the mirror to apply the slick substance to the spaces of scalp left exposed by the braids.

“What’s that?” Cloud asked.

“Carob oil,” Reno replied. “Soothes the scalp, keeps it healthy.”

Cloud looked at Reno in the mirror, having never seen him with any other hairstyle than his usual. It was fascinating how much hair changed one’s appearance. With his red spikes no longer flagging about, the light brought extra attention to the shape of Reno’s jaw and the pronunciation of his cheekbones, with it out of the way, his tattoos were also more visible. He seemed more masculine, and yet pretty at the same time.

Once he got over the initial shock of the change, Cloud _really_ liked how they came out on his friend.

“You look good in them,” Cloud managed to say. Reno gave him his trademark devilish smirk and winked at him, smacking his lips together in a mock kiss, before moving out of Cloud’s way.

Cloud leaned over the sink into the mirror, and examined his own hairline. Aside from lopping off his ponytail when he’d run off to chase his ill-fated dreams, he had never done anything different with his hair. “Think I’d look good in them?”

Reno stopped, and stuck his torso back into the bathroom to have a look at Cloud in the mirror.

“Hm…” He examined Cloud’s mostly diamond-shaped face, and cupped his chin in the webbing of his left index and thumb. “No fuckin’ clue, but,” his eyes lit up. “Want me to give you some?”

Cloud blinked, and turned from the mirror to look at Reno. “Aren’t your fingers tired?”

Reno reached over and started gathering his materials: the carob oil, a wide-toothed comb, an unlabeled spray bottle, and a very thin-toothed comb with a long metal tail, the likes of which Cloud had never seen. That could have been a torture device, for all he knew. “C’mon.”

Cloud followed Reno, which the latter had to conceal his excitement about: Cloud’s assent to almost _anything_ new was rare. 

“Grab a snack and your phone or something,” Reno said, as he went to prepare his space in front of his apartment. “It’s gonna be a minute.”

\--

Cloud had combed his hair nearly every day of his life since he was probably six years old, but having someone else do it brought layers upon layers of new sensations that he was unaware of having missed. 

It occurred to him, as Reno filed the large-toothed comb through his hair, that this was the very first time anyone had ever done this. As the plastic teeth sent cascades of tingling down his spine that vaguely reminded him of an orgasm, he realized how intimate of an action doing someone’s hair was, and how much he’d come to trust Reno.

“You got really, really dry hair,” Reno said, as he used the edge of the comb to part his hair in different spots, slowly. Cloud liked how that felt: the combination of his skin being exposed to air and the soft way that the hard plastic sank into his skin. Reno sucked his teeth, and picked up the spray bottle with his right hand while his left continued to comb. “Damn. Close your eyes real quick.”

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut as Reno sprayed a copious amount of the faintly sweet-smelling liquid onto his hair.

“What _is_ that?”

“Water and leave in conditioner.” Reno dropped the items and then replaced the comb with his fingers, working to pull the product from root to end of Cloud’s hair. Cloud felt his spikes weighed down and flatten against his head just as Reno pulled back the two strands of hair in front of his ears and combed them into the rest of the mass. He turned up sideways to look at Reno.

“You sure about this, Reno?” 

Reno placed both hands on either side of Cloud’s head and turned it back straight, so that Cloud looked out through the grating of the rail, and onto the street.

“Don’t move your head no more,” he scolded, “or your shit’s gonna be as crooked as that street sign over there.”

Cloud tried to chuckle, but Reno scolded him again and held his head firm. “I mean it, don’t fucking move right quick--”

Cloud felt the sharp end of the rat-tail comb at the front and center of his hairline, and then move back to split his hair into two even parts.

“There,” Reno said as he began the process of sectioning off more rows of Cloud’s hair. “And no, I’m not sure about this, but I ain’t about to pass up an opportunity to play in your hair.”

“You play in my hair all the time.” Cloud thought about how Reno’s hands always ended up interlocked in Cloud’s hair, whether it was during sex or after. He liked having his hair pulled while being fucked as much as he liked his scalp caressed as they ventilated together after.

“Not like this, though.” Reno was completely focused. “Okay, from now on, don’t move your head too much. I’m about to start braiding.”

Reno took the first strands of hair from the left side of Cloud’s ear, causing him to lean over at an extreme angle.

Cloud winced sharply, “Reno, that… ow!”

The beginning of the plait reminded Cloud of getting tattooed. He reached back in his mind for one of the few times his mother had braided his hair as a small child, and couldn’t imagine it ever hurting, nor for the many little girls in his village that wore braids daily.

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. “Reno, this _really_ hurts.”

“The little ones always do, shorty. Hang on.”

Cloud held on through that first braid, one of the smallest, and was relieved when Reno finished, but then deflated when he moved on to the next one.

“I don’t know if I can take this,” he admitted. 

“Quit being a baby,” The next row was a bit thicker, and didn’t feel quite as bad. “Just imagine how good it’ll look when it’s done.”

“Will it?” Cloud asked, narrowing his eyes again at the sharp tugs of hair in his skin. 

Reno laughed. “Iono. Maybe not, especially if you don’t _quit with all that moving._ ” He moved forward in his chair, and pulled Cloud back so that he could lean the side of his head against his knee. Cloud relaxed his neck and closed his eyes so he could focus on breathing through the throbbing pain in his scalp. 

It worked, until Reno caught a snag as he pulled his comb through the strand of hair he hadn’t braided yet. Cloud hissed. “Reno!” A hand went up to his head.

“Sorry, sorry.” He was more sympathetic that time. “You’re so tender-headed.” Cloud became distracted by the texture of the finished fine braid, until Reno pulled his fingers off. “You’re gonna fuck it up before it’s done. Chill, man. Here.” He reached down and handed Cloud’s phone to him. “Watch something.”

Cloud agreed that that was the best way to go about sitting for this. He picked up the apple he’d brought out and worked on it as he held his phone up at an angle that would quickly exhaust his arm, and tuned in to a live feed of a game he’d planned to watch.

“Soccer?” Reno glanced over briefly to look at Cloud’s phone as he moved on to a thicker section of hair, sweeping back the short pieces at Cloud’s hairline before he started on it.

“Football,” Cloud corrected, his mouth full of the meat of the apple. 

“Soccer.”

“Where I’m from, it’s called football.”

He stopped chewing long enough to watch one of the moving red dots on the field make a shot towards the opposing goal, and miss. “Damn!”

Reno held the braid tight as Cloud fidgeted violently. “Sorry,” Cloud said.

Reno just snorted a chuckle. He’d never observed Cloud enjoying sports before, and it was refreshing to see him in the same light as enthusiastic observers at a bar. “Who’s playing?”

“ _SC Edge_ and _Heimatort SV._ ” 

“ _Edge_ is playing?” The Edge soccer club was a direct, new successor to the defunct SC _Midgar,_ and its inception had been a big deal. Most of _Midgar’s_ players had been killed, and the creation of a new one had taken years of scouting and donations to come to fruition. This was their first season, and they hadn’t done too well, but the soccer community around the world was hopeful for their success. “Who’s your team?”

“ _Heimat,_ of course.”

“Oh, right…” Reno had only ever read the word referring to the ancestral homeland of the first occupants of Nibelheim, Modeoheim, and Zieglerheim, and didn’t recognize it when Cloud had said it. “Them’s your peoples. What’s the score?”

“2-1. _Heimat_ leads by one, but…” Cloud finished the apple, chewing slowly. “There’s five minutes on the clock.”

“That’s a lotta time for _Edge_ to score.” 

“Right.” Cloud suddenly realized that since Reno started talking to him, the sharp pain in his scalp had been reduced to a dull ache that he could process as negligible. 

Reno moved onto the second thickest braid, close to the center of Cloud’s head, checking in every so often with Cloud’s game. By then, Cloud’s head was nearly upright, in a relatively comfortable position. 

Cloud’s body tensed up randomly, and Reno could hear the crowd swell. “Oh--”

“Who scored?”

After a pause, Cloud relaxed again. “ _Edge._ It’s gonna be a draw.” He turned his screen off and set the phone aside.

“You’re really into this, Cloud,” Reno said, taking the comb from his mouth to even out the line before starting. “You used to play or something?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

Cloud hadn’t thought about soccer in a long time, and for that reason, he had to pause for a moment.

“Let’s see… I was seven when I started--”

“That young?”

“Yeah, all the boys do. I stopped when I was fifteen, the season before I left for Shinra.”

“What position?”

“Midfielder, mostly. Offense my last year.”

Reno was treated to a nice image of a teenage Cloud, in shin guards and long socks, skidding into mud to take a shot. “I can totally see that. Were you any good?”

Answering that question left Cloud with a bittersweet tinge in his throat.

“Yeah, I was.”

Soccer was one of the few things Cloud had ever been good at besides fighting, and ironically the only thing he did with the other children he grew up with, and for many years. In retrospect, it was strange to him that they spoke to him and treated him like an equal on the field--when he was an asset to them--but behaved like strangers to him everywhere else. 

As Reno started work on the largest piece of hair in the center of his head, they talked about how adolescence and his own poverty had an increasingly negative effect on Cloud’s behavior, how he had stopped seeking connections with the people around him, and how his anger manifested in his playing through aggressiveness: both while playing and against his opponents, coach, referees, everyone. By fifteen he had become his local team’s most valuable player, but he owned the oldest equipment and had a reputation for looking unkempt and uncared for. He’d probably single-handedly won half the games for his team in his final season, but it didn’t matter, because he was constantly being carded for his attitude. 

“Worst red card you ever got?”

Cloud closed his eyes and groaned and brought a hand to his temple. “Oh man…”

Reno giggled. “Damn, it must’ve been bad. C’mon, shorty. Give it up.”

“I really don’t want to. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Reno offered. “Deadass.”

Cloud sighed and swallowed. “It’s the one that got me kicked off the team.”

“Go on?”

“... I spat on someone.”

Reno gasped, and stopped what he was doing, pulling Cloud’s head back so he could look him in the eye.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?”

“Deadass.”

“Cloud!” Reno went back to braiding, but Cloud could hear the smile on his face. “ _Why,_ though?”

“We were grappling for the ball, and he flopped out on his ass. It was an accident, but I didn’t help him up. As soon as I turned my back on him, he called me an _assi._ ”

“What’s that?”

Cloud thought about how to translate that word into Reno’s urban Standard without reciting a dictionary.

“‘White trash,’ basically.”

“Oof.” Reno pulled his comb through the next bit of hair, and then decided to take a jab at Cloud, leaning down close to his ear and whispering: “Was it true, though?”

Cloud folded his arms and made his mouth into a firm stubborn line.

“... Well, yeah, but that ain’t the fucking point, is it?”

Reno’s laughter made it hard for Cloud not to join in for a few chuckles himself.

“And then you fucking _spat_ on him. Phew! And you’re still alive? I would have stomped you out!”

Cloud shrugged. “They did, after the game.”

“They jumped you? Your teammates help you?”

“Nope.”

Reno scoffed and shook his head. “Buncha bitches. Where I’m from, if that happened, yeah we’d be pissed at you, but we wouldn’t let no opposing team whoop your ass. That’s fucking _foul._ Turn this way a bit--there.”

Cloud righted himself for Reno. Telling this story proved to be the best anesthetic so far, and the time had been passing smoothly.

“I wasn’t expecting them to help anyway.” After a moment, Cloud admitted: “I started the fight.”

“You mean _after_?”

“The player I spat on...” Cloud stopped to think, and then began to laugh, the intensity increasing as more of the memory became clear.

“Oh, I gotta hear this…” Reno smiled at the rare sound of Cloud in a rapidly uncontrolled descent into laughter. He started on the centermost braid, marking their halfway point.

“I told him to go fuck his mother,” Cloud finally said, once he recovered. He broke up into another brief fit of laughter, as his hand passed over his face.

Reno didn’t understand. “So?”

“In our language,” Cloud attempted to clarify. “Nobody swears casually, and insults never include mothers. Like, I knew this kid. I knew his mother. I knew them my whole life. And I told him to go fuck his mom.” 

He laughed again, at the sheer nerve of his younger self. 

“ _Geh und fick deine Mama._ I remember; that’s exactly what I said. _Nobody_ says that in my language, as in, I don’t even think it’s a proper swear. I translated it from Standard. I yelled it at the top of my lungs, in front of everyone, after we had lost because I got carded off the field. He _had_ to kick my ass.”

“Damn, Cloud. You spat on someone and _then_ talked shit afterwards? After you _lost_?” Reno shook his head. “You were mad hating.”

Cloud omitted the rest of the story: that he had to be carried off by two referees and a coach, bloodied and beaten, and continued to use every swear word he’d ever heard at the opposing team and the gaggle of onlookers who had congregated to watch. 

“Yeah, well. I knew I was done after that.”

“That’s almost gangster,” Reno said, combing out the remainder of Cloud’s unbraided hair. He reached for the spray bottle. “Who’d figure?” He went through another round of spraying Cloud’s hair without warning. Cloud shut his eyes too late.

“Damn, Reno, you think that’s enough?”

“You think it’s enough to wash your hair every fucking day?” Reno was muffled, holding the comb in his teeth as he started the next section of hair, leading down to Cloud’s left side. “You’re stripping your hair of all its nutrients.”

“Hello? I’m from _Nibelheim._ The air up there is dry. My hair is greasy.”

“Really, because I’m looking straight at your hair right now and it’s dry as fuck. You need to use moisturizer or conditioner or something. You don’t live on a mountain no more.”

Reno was right, Cloud never bothered to moisturize his hair. He’d never been told that he needed to. 

“So, your turn,” Cloud said. “Tell me yours.”

They continued their conversation, breaking from Cloud’s story to talk about Reno’s skirmishes on various basketball courts around the different sectors that sounded more like gang wars than unsportsmanlike behavior, from Cloud’s perspective. 

Even though some of Reno’s fights involved knives and people getting killed, they didn’t sound anywhere near as extreme as Cloud’s antisocial football tantrums. Or funny.

“Almost done, shorty,” Reno said quietly, once three more braids remained. “Got three more.”

His hair had never been pulled so tight back before; he felt it even change the shape of his eyes. He promised Reno that he wouldn’t pick his phone up and have a look in his camera before he finished, but he was anxious about how it looked.

A neighbor passed them on the steps and greeted the both of them, and Cloud felt self-conscious.

“I’m so curious,” he said. 

“So am I,” Reno said, using the rat tail one last time to separate the last two pieces of hair. “I’m serious Cloud, you need to start moisturizing.”

“I heard you, Reno.”

“Keep playin’,” Reno continued, right over Cloud’s rolling eyes, “You gonna end up one of them bald-headed hoes. And then you gonna need them Wall Market wigs again.”

Cloud smiled. His head hurt badly, but the overall bonding experience of having someone do his hair had been a special one, and while he wasn’t sure he would ever want to experience pain like this again, he was happy about the time he spent with Reno.

“Maybe I’d look good bald,” Cloud said. Now mostly finished, he turned slightly upward to Reno. “You don’t know.”

Reno came back quickly: “You don’t got the face for it,” he teased.

Cloud turned his head straight again and folded his arms in mock-offense. “Fuck you, I’m shaving it next weekend.”

“Your wigs would fit you better then,” Reno chuckled, unphased.

“And you’d fuck me anyway.” 

Cloud never had a relationship like this with anyone before, where they could tease each other without worrying whether the other person truly meant it or not. For Cloud, their back-and-forth wordplay was like tennis match, or composing poetry with a whole other person.

Nasty poetry, sometimes.

“Your hair don’t change what that pussy do,” Reno finally quipped back, sticking his tongue out as he completed the last braid. 

That one took them both out.

**Author's Note:**

> Really loved writing this. :) thanks to my cousin powerofsand for providing some of the best moments of dialogue between these two.  
> 
> 
> also Cloud is German fight me


End file.
